For unexplained and unimaginable reasons, private insurers (or their supporters) have not yet been questioned about...

A)  for-profit insurer's billions of dollars of investments in health-damaging industries,
B)  the conflicts of interest related to their huge investments in Pharmaceuticals, and
C)  for-profit and "non-profit" insurer use of what was their customers'  health care money to fund campaigns of candidates many of us would not support in a thousand years.

 Re/ A:  Insurers have big economic motives and duties to do little or nothing about harmful industrial substances in which they are invested.   Instead, as we see, the focus of "concerned" attention is overwhelmingly on natural un-patenented, public domain risks and harms, on on individuals for their behaviors, "faulty" genes, diets, or "unknown factors". As this syndrome trickles down to doctors, nurses and even medical schools, we have a general failure by medical professionals to educate or warn about toxic, carcinogenic or other harmful industrial substances or technologies, a failure to educate about benign alternatives, and a failure to properly diagnose and then properly treat patients' illnesses. We pretty much have institutionalized malpractice.

Re/ B:   Insurers have same motives and duties to  do little or nothing to check for problems with drugs in which they invest, and they have that motive/duty to promote their own drugs over others that may be cheaper, safer and more effective.  Benefits of natural and un-patented medicines generally are simply ignored.

Re/ C:   If there are to be Mandates, that would mean that every person in the country would become a source of Campaign Funds for insurers (for-profit and non-profit alike) to give to candidates that many of us oppose.
  If one is low income, the government will give that money to private insurers out of everyone's tax revenues. If one is higher income, this revenue would go directly to insurers AND also go again via those government payments to insurers for the lower income people.   Those who buy their own insurance would be paying twice.  Insurers would be getting money from those in the Mandate category twice.

 I do not know how much insurers give to political campaigns, or what percent of an insurance customer's premiums are used for such campaign funding, but these are relevant figures that ought be known publicly and discussed, and as soon as possible.

   If there are no current Election or Voting Laws that cover such second-handed (indeed under-handed) corruptions of our democratic system, then it is time for such legislation. This form of stealth support for insurance industry's favorite candidates undercuts our opposition to those candidates and our support for our own choices.

One Bottom line is....if there is a Public Interest in having everyone insured, it MUST be the Public At Large that pays for it with equitable and fair progressive income taxes...the far and away least costly and least burdensome solution.

Secondly, there is absolutely No Public Interest involved with non-health related things like insurer advertising, lobbying, campaign gifts, CEO bonuses, Corporate jets, convention expenses, investments in health damaging etc industries, and lawn care at their Corporate Headquarters.   Any Mandates that require citizens to become revenue sources for such things are utterly inappropriate and unjust...and apparently un-constitutional.

Here, for some tip-of-the-iceberg information, are links to PNHP exposures of health insurer's multi-billion dollar investments in just cigarette manufacturers (!), and links to two SEC filings showing many troubling investment holdings for MetLife and CIGNA.   I hope this is useful.

http://www.pnhp. org/news/ 2009/june/ health_life_ insurer.php
http://www.pnhp. org/news/ 2000/march/ insurers_ are_major_ i.php

MetLife: http://www.secinfo. com/d14D5a. u3nht.htm
CIGNA: http://www.secinfo. com/dWcPa. 5c.htm